owing lava and comes up
from below in a series of boiling pools. Then again it falls in majestic
sheets over high walls of worn precipices. Several large falls and some
very picturesque smaller cascades interspersed with rapids and natural
bridges give to this river a beauty peculiarly its own. The most weird
of all the rough places through which the Wailuku river flows is that
known as the basin of Rainbow Falls near Hilo. Here Hina, the moon
goddess of the Polynesians, lived in a great open cave, over which the
falls hung their misty, rainbow-tinted veil. Her son Maui, the mighty
demi-god of Polynesia, supposed by some writers to be the sun-god of the
Polynesians, had extensive lands along the northern bank of the river.
Here among his cultivated fields he had his home, from which he went
forth to accomplish the wonders attributed to him in the legends of the
Hawaiians.

Below the cave in which Hina dwelt the river fought its way through a
narrow gorge and then, in a series of many small falls, descended to the
little bay, where its waters mingled with the surf of the salt sea. Far
above the cave, in the bed of the river, dwelt Kuna. The district
through which that portion of the river runs bears to this day the name
"Wai-kuna" or "Kuna's river." When the writer was talking with the
natives concerning this part of the old legend, they said "Kuna is not a
Hawaiian word. It means something like a snake or a dragon, something we
do not have in these islands." This, they thought, made the connection
with the Hina legend valueless until they were shown that Tuna (or kuna)
was the New Zealand name of a reptile which attacked Hina and struck her
with his tail like a crocodile, for which Maui killed him. When this was
understood, the Hawaiians were greatly interested to give the remainder
of this legend and compare it with the New Zealand story. In New Zealand
there are several statements concerning Tuna's dwelling place. He is
sometimes represented as coming from a pool to attack Hina and sometimes
from a distant stream, and sometimes from the river by which Hina dwelt.
The Hawaiians told of the annoyances which Hina endured from Kuna while
he lived above her home in the Wailuku. He would stop up the river and
fill it with dirt as when the freshets brought down the debris of the
storms from the mountain sides. He would throw logs and rolling stones
into the stream that they might be carried over the falls and drive Hina
from